


love is a doing word

by amurderof



Series: fearless on my breath [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Implied Consent, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming, Self-Lubrication, internalized prejudice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-30 16:59:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3944533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amurderof/pseuds/amurderof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's unable to stop thinking about it, about those large hands in his hair, about those strong arms surrounding him. About those thick fingers sliding deep within him. He wonders what it would be like, to share a heat. To share it with someone who would not be ashamed of him. To share…</p><p>And with someone who didn't think there was anything to be ashamed of in the first place.</p><p>Dorian thinks about this, and listens to Bull and his Chargers laughing at each other, and drinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is a doing word

**Author's Note:**

> i have read like 2358906489056 omegaverse fics, to the point where any of my friends know they can get me to read a fic in a fandom i don't care about if it's abo (i hate you all), so i figured it was... finally time to write one....
> 
> this is so self-indulgent and also [alphabetiful's](http://alphabetiful.tumblr.com) fault and i have both many and no regrets.
> 
> (also this is unbetaed bc i wouldn't force my trash kinks on sweet kind fiveyearmission SO LET ME KNOW if anything's funky.)

Dorian can barely stand to look at him.

It's disgusting, vile — absolutely absurd and out of line that anyone would behave in such a manner. There are things one talks about in public, and then there are things one never discusses outside of their own room, if _that_. Never with anyone else. Even if it seems necessary.

In fact, Dorian would like to forget that the conversation he can’t help but overhear ever happened. He shouldn't be privy to it. It shouldn't be discussed amongst public company.

And yet there they are, the Chargers and their ridiculous brute of a leader, discussing private moments as though they were fodder for good conversation. Torrid bedroom talk Dorian listens to because it's impossible not to, as small as the tavern is, and as booming as the Iron Bull’s voice is.

One of the Chargers starts the conversation: where’s Bull been and whom with? Somebody _special_? There's raucous laughter followed by Bull waving his hands in the air to quiet them. _No no,_ Bull says, _it’s not half as scandalous as you’re making it sound. I'm just never going to turn down someone who's looking for help with a heat_. Everyone at the table — nay everyone in the tavern is aware of that now, in tantalizing detail, and Dorian feels his cheeks flush.

The way they all talk about it, as though this is a common conversation to have in public, unsettles Dorian at his core. He feels ashamed for hearing it. And yet he listens, listens to Bull talk about what he does and what he likes to do, respectful of the omega he attends to — that's how he phrases it. Whomever he attends to, as though there's nothing shameful in the act.

Dorian doesn't believe it. No one thinks like that. The south has open views of sex and sexuality, and clearly the qunari do as well, but Dorian refuses it.

He can't... help it though, can't help how he imagines it. He's never spent one of his heats with someone else, never been able to overcome the shame even after he fled from his parents and stayed with Alexius, even on his journey to the south.

But he's unable to shake the mental image now. He's unable to stop thinking about it, about those large hands in his hair, about those strong arms surrounding him. About those thick fingers sliding deep within him. He wonders what it would be like, to share a heat. To share it with someone who would not be ashamed of him. To share…

And with someone who didn't think there was anything to be ashamed of in the first place.

Dorian thinks about this, and listens to Bull and his Chargers laughing at each other, and drinks.

==

Dorian wishes he were surprised that eventually, regardless of his initial and ongoing preconceptions, all of those useless hours spent culminate in his falling into the Bull’s bed — quite literally, given the state of their combined sobriety, or lack thereof.

“Careful there, big guy,” Bull says, mouth scant inches from Dorian’s skin at his neck, and Dorian’s eyes roll back into his head. He’s drunk, is the thing. It has absolutely nothing to do with the weight of Bull pressing down on him, his knee between Dorian’s parting legs.

“I knew you were a clumsy oaf,” Dorian replies, and presses his palms, fingers spread wide, over Bull’s chest, sweet Andraste, how warm his skin is. How good it feels under Dorian’s hands, the texture different than he’s used to, like leather.

Bull grins down at him, his smile no different than the one he shoots Dorian’s way when they’re out with the Inquisitor, and Dorian lets the thrill of that pour down his spine — Bull’s open affection not embarrassing like this, nothing to hide from with the warmth in Dorian’s limbs and in his gut.

Bull leans in and kisses him, and Dorian’s digs his fingernails into Bull’s glorious chest, a pathetic attempt at grabbing for purchase given the way Dorian feels suddenly as though the bed has been pulled out from underneath him and he’s in freefall. This is just sex. Will be. It’s only kissing now, with a great Qunari pressing him into the comforter, biting at his lips and rolling their tongues together as though this is actually interesting to him, as though kissing is enough. As though they both don’t know how tonight will end.

Dorian knows, oh how he’s imagined it. The Iron Bull laying him out and taking, _conquering_ as he so crassly put it before, holding Dorian down and fucking him, first with his thick fingers and then — Dorian shivers at the thought — perhaps with his tongue, oh, surely Bull would want that. They always do. They have to. Dorian's heard it enough to know that it must be true.

A thrilling thought, if a little filthy. Dorian’s not sure how to feel about it.

And then of course... Then of course Bull would want to fuck him. It's... Dorian doesn't know how to feel about that. It’s what every omega is supposed to want, what they're supposed to yearn for, when faced with a _big strapping alpha_. At least that's what he’s read. At least that's what he's been told. Not that anyone talks about it. Except in the south...

It doesn't happen as Dorian envisioned.

They kiss, and Bull does no conquering; the qunari asks if he can suck Dorian off, and Dorian — Dorian stares at him, feels his own eyes widen as he works his mouth soundlessly. No alpha would want to have anything to do with an omega's phallus and in his youth when he had masqueraded as a beta obviously he'd enjoyed fellatio but... and it dawns on Dorian with a sinking unpleasant sensation in his chest that Bull doesn't know. Bull thinks he's a beta. Why wouldn't he? Dorian spends every waking moment ensuring no one knows — he should be flattered that not even the spy's figured it out.

Bull cottons on to his hesitation however, and Dorian can't have that. He wraps a hand around one of Bull's horns and packs the disappointment — why, why fucking disappointment, _why_ — away, and gives himself back over to the sensation of Bull above him, around him, tells him yes, yes, Maker yes.

Bull is somehow both crass and a perfect gentleman, cracking jokes about pushy mages when Dorian grabs at his horns but asking permission for every little thing he wants to do, and is absolutely _phenomenal_ at oral sex — and when Dorian comes Bull drags the back of his hand across his mouth and grins up at Dorian. Dorian can do nothing but drag him back up to kiss, urge him on when Bull takes himself in hand and spends against Dorian's stomach, breathing hotly into Dorian's open mouth.

It's a lovely time, and Dorian doesn't regret it when he bites a kiss against Bull's lips before seeing himself out, hair and makeup mussed, skin flushed. He doesn't regret what was obviously a bad idea from the start.

He does still... wonder, though.

==

It becomes… well, it becomes a “thing”. Dorian takes advantage of Bull’s open door policy with increasing regularity. Bull cracks jokes in the tavern about previous dalliances but has no new stories, and never mentions what he and Dorian get up to between the sheets. Or up against the wall. Or on the requisition table, once.

Dorian will admit that it’s not what he expected — both their continuing together in the first place, and how Bull behaves in the bedroom. Dorian had supposed that even with Bull’s mistaking him for a beta, he’d eventually want to fuck him. That was how alphas were, after all — Dorian had fooled around with several in his lifetime, listened to them lose their calm veneer and talk about how they wanted to knot his pretty mouth — his mouth, for Andraste’s sake. Alphas liked several clearly-defined things; and yet the Iron Bull seemed to find everything equally important, or at least equally worth pursuing.

“Sit on my face,” Bull would coax until Dorian was leaning forward over Bull’s chest, breathing hotly against his navel while Bull held him at the hips and curled his tongue inside him.

“Cross your ankles,” Bull would command, until Dorian was holding Bull around the neck while Bull slid his dick between Dorian’s closed thighs.

"Let me hear you, little mage," Bull would hiss into Dorian's ear as Dorian straddled his lap, until Dorian moaned into Bull's mouth while Bull worked both of their cocks in his grip.

It was strange, that Bull suggested so many things but never fucking. Never brought up pushing Dorian down on his stomach and claiming him.

Was it something alphas didn't do with betas? Dorian felt stupid for thinking it, but how was he supposed to know? He'd spent his entire life hiding his sex from anyone outside of his immediate family, as did every other alti — heat, rut, bloody inconvenient hormones were things that happened to peasants. An altus was powerful and in-control at all times. There were only beta alti, as far as anyone would tell you, and few of them could be convinced to let themselves be fucked like an omega. If you wanted _that_ , there were brothels, and even while drunk and disappointing Dorian never gave anyone the _chance_ to figure out his sex.

And now, he regularly shares a bed with the Iron Bull, who makes Dorian… _want_ , and not know how to ask, or even if he _can_.

Never could he have expected to feel so naive about sex at his age.

==

Bull wraps one of his meaty arms around Dorian's stomach and pulls him close, loosening his grip only to let Dorian settle himself more comfortable against Bull's side. Dorian lays his hand across Bull's chest —  allows himself to take comfort in Bull's hold.

Dorian does not ask to stay that night, as though keeping the words to himself makes it any less than what it is, but he also does not leave. Bull doesn’t bring it up either, simply tightening his arm around Dorian’s back in the foggy moments before Dorian slips off to sleep.

Neither of them say anything about it in the morning, though Dorian does hassle Bull for sleeping with his socks on (“I fell asleep with some sort of heat leech hanging off my side,” Bull says mildly), and Bull catches the hand Dorian flails at him (“Why this?” Dorian _does not_ whine) when he opens the window’s curtains and sunlight spills across Dorian’s face.

It’s another brick in this path they’re walking on, heading somewhere; Dorian neither knows nor wants to overthink it for fear of overturning each piece and finding some sort of rot festering underneath. It’s… it’s good, is what it is. It feels good, and it makes him… he feels content. Sometimes happy.

(Often happy, Maker preserve him.)

==

“Did you see that?” Bull swings his axe in a wide arc as he turns, smacking it against his shoulder to rest. Krem mutters something about _the chief taking out his last damn eye himself_ , and Bull may ignore him but Dorian can’t keep the small smile from his face.

He places his finger against his current page and closes the book on his lap — one of Brother Genitivi’s, Dorian’s read it several times — then looks up to meet Bull’s gaze. “See what?”

Bull points to his side and Dorian takes in the remains of what was once a training dummy. Its head is missing — Dorian cranes his neck and finds it in the shadow of one of Skyhold's walls, surrounded by bushes — and it looks as though someone planted something explosive inside of its torso and left it to its fate.

"Are you proud of defeating the fake leather man?" Dorian asks, arching one eyebrow, and he ignores the fluttering of happiness in his chest when he sees Krem start laughing behind Bull.

"Fuck no," Bull says, heaving his axe off of his shoulder and dropping the head onto the ground. He rests his elbow on the handle and leans forward, and he looks at Dorian from underneath his brow — an angle that Dorian most frequently sees when Bull's teasing him, mouth on his cock. Sweet Andraste. Dorian manages to wrench himself away from that memory in time to hear the tail end of Bull's explanation, something about a bet he has running with Varric: "— so now he's gotta try and piss Morris off by destroying something more annoying to requisition.”

"We could break the bed," Dorian says before he thinks through the sentence, and once it's out he concentrates on not blushing, _vishante kaffas_ , did he say that outloud?

“That on the table?” Bull asks with his broad smile, and Dorian quickly opens his book and returns to his reading so he doesn’t say _yes_.

==

"D'you need anything for next week?" Bull asks him while Dorian sits at his dressing table and waxes his mustache. Dorian finishes his work and turns his head over his shoulder, blinking back at Bull in confusion. Next week is...

Bull rarely allows himself to appear anxious. In the time Dorian has known him — even after they started this strange dalliance of theirs, when Dorian was made aware of the beginnings of the depths to the Iron Bull that so many would never imagine existed — Bull prefers to tackle his concerns as straightforwardly as possible: reason it out or hit something until it's gone. This morning however...

Bull's brow is furrowed, and his eye is narrowed. His lips are pursed. He looks like he's sucked on a lemon. (Though knowing Bull, he'd like that sort of thing.)

Next week is Dorian's heat. The Inquisitor knows, because she accompanied him to visit his father in Redcliffe and heard the whole dreadful tale — but she had sworn not to reveal him if he asked it of her, and of course he did, he's not a fool. And he trusts her not to have done so.

Which means Bull... Dorian feels as though he's been dropped into a pool of ice water.

"How long have you known."

Bull's concern twists into confusion, his eyebrows tipping up. He pushes himself up to sitting and drops an arm across one of his knees. "Pretty soon after you joined the Inquisition. I know you've been keeping it a secret but I wanted to make sure you'd..."

"Of — of _course_ I've not, I simply don't think it's anybody's business." Dorian can feel himself flushing, his cheeks hot with shame. His throat is dry, his tongue heavy in his mouth, his eyes itching for some fucking reason. He feels like he's been punched in the chest.

“It’s not,” Bull agrees, both his expression and tone perfectly reasonable. It should feel patronizing, should make anger start to boil in the bottom of Dorian’s stomach, but there’s something about it that steals the emotion out from under him.

They sit in silence for long moments, during which Dorian tries desperately to come up with something he can say that won't embarrass himself, _shame_ himself, anything that isn't asking Bull with a too-forced calm why Bull doesn't want to _fuck him_.

"I should've told you I knew," Bull says after Dorian's curled his fingers in the back of the chair, scraping his nails against the wood and probably wrecking one or two of them. "I wasn't sure you wanted me to."

"Well, if you simply _figured me out_ —"

"Hey," Bull interrupts, his voice quiet, as though Dorian were a startled ram. Dorian loathes that it works on him, as sure as how Bull's hand at the small of his back roots him to the bed, as sure as how Bull's grip around Dorian's wrists keeps Dorian focused when Bull's between his knees. "Nobody else knows. I know vints are fucked up about this stuff, so I kept it to myself. If you wanted to bring it up, you would've. This time, I weighed my options and went with wanting to make sure you had everything you needed for your heat."

Dorian nods, swallowing. And then clings to the last vestiges of his panic, because somehow, Maker damn it, it's more comfortable than acknowledging Bull's open, straightforward acceptance.  "Are you surprised I haven't asked you yet, to accompany me through my heat? You're well-known around the castle for your abilities, but you can't tell me you're offended."

Bull, damn him, looks unfazed by the admittedly-lackluster jabs, and Dorian's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth when Bull maneuvers himself to the side of the bed and spreads his legs, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his thighs.

"I'm not offended," Bull agrees, and for a moment Dorian can't look away from the arch of his back, the line of his arms, the curve of his ridiculous belly. "You didn't come to me that first time to help you through your heat. You wanted sex, and so did I. It's worked out real well, don't you think?"

"Obviously." Dorian swallows and forces himself to look away from Bull, towards the new curtains — hideous, but at least he can distract himself by tracing the pedestrian floral pattern with his eyes.

Bull shifts on the bed: Dorian can hear the creaking of the frame and the rustling of his disastrous clothing. "D'you wanna know why I haven't asked if I can fuck you?"

Dorian keeps his attention elsewhere. He's unsure he could handle Bull's steady gaze _and_ that question, all at once. “I haven’t the slightest.”

He catches movement in his peripheral vision and turns to see Bull standing next to the chair, an arm’s breadth away. Bull doesn’t say anything as he bends into a squat, now eye level with Dorian. Dorian could reach out and unsettle him, pushing him back onto his arse. Or take him by the horns and yank him forward to kiss.

Bull uncurls one of Dorian’s hands from the back of the chair and draws it towards him, pressing kisses to Dorian’s knuckles. Dorian will never know what to do with Bull’s open affection, with how… _devout_ he can be. And now he knows that _Bull’s_ known, and perhaps that’s been at the root of how Bull’s treated him, so kindly, so circumspectly, until Dorian wanted something else. Until Dorian asked for it.

Maker, Dorian could spend an age analyzing the construction of some of Bull’s sentences. _Why I haven’t asked_.

“I wanted you to.” He looks away as soon as he’s said it and bites the inside of his bottom lip. He sounds like a child. He _feels_ like a child, bumbling through a conversation that shouldn’t be above him but somehow _is_ , and he regrets saying anything in the first place. He should have brushed it off, dismissed Bull’s concern, insisted he would be fine if pressed. Instead he’s invited… _this_ , this conversation, awkward and unnecessary and altogether too revealing.

He can feel Bull’s steady gaze on him, _studying_ him, certainly gleaning far more information than Dorian wants to reveal. He hates that, how Bull can look at him and pick him apart, how Bull seems to know what Dorian needs from him; he _hates_ it, how it makes his heartbeat pick up, his eyes widen, his throat dry, the back of his neck fucking _sweat_.

“I’m not doing any of this because you’re an omega,” Bull says after too long, after Dorian’s worked himself into a state, his hand near to shaking in Bull’s grip. “You need to know that.”

“I’d hope not,” Dorian replies immediately, “because if so, you’ve gotten nothing out of this except a waste of your time.” Which is unfair and simply untrue, Dorian even knows it, but the words are easy, the dismissal is easy. Tossing this in Bull’s face and letting him deal with it is _easy_ , because of course Dorian isn’t slowly sinking into ice water at the thought of Bull taking what he’s been handed and deciding it’s not worth it. It’s a simplification. It would be.

Bull’s lips crook up on either side, absurd how handsome his smile is, and he turns Dorian’s hand over and presses a kiss to the center of his palm. Dorian feels lightheaded, suddenly. “Messed it up though, huh.”

Dorian clears his throat… and bends his fingers to brush his fingertips across Bull’s cheek. He can’t stand Bull’s skill at saying what he needs to hear; but he also can’t stop himself from wanting to know what exactly that would be. “Which part?”

Bull turns into Dorian’s touch, and whereas Dorian would expect the man to close his eye in circumspection, Bull stares at him undeterred. “I thought if I didn’t make a big deal out of it, you’d be more comfortable. But ignoring it made you self-conscious.”

Dorian opens his mouth, a protest on his lips, he's no such thing; but Bull squeezes his wrist and Dorian lets him have that, his temporary silence.

"I should've figured that out and I didn't," Bull says. Dorian struggles to keep his opinion to himself — how was Bull supposed to figure any of that out if Dorian said nothing? — but Bull continues, "So I'll ask you, like I did the first time."

"I told you I wanted to take you up on your offer and you said something crass about _riding the Bull_ ," Dorian interrupts, because he won't allow Bull to forget that lowpoint.

Bull _laughs_ , though, impervious to the folly of such a line — just as he had then — and turns Dorian's hand so he can scrape his teeth across the flesh of Dorian's palm, place a kiss against the reddened skin. "And then I said, 'whatever you want is yours'." Bull closes his eye then, and nips at the base of Dorian’s thumb before taking it in his mouth, teeth against his skin.

“Fuck,” Dorian breathes out.

"That's the idea, if you want," Bull says, voice muffled — because of how he's _fellating Dorian's thumb_ , sweet Maker.

"You know what I want." Dorian's voice cracks and he ducks his head, grazing his bottom lip with his teeth... and even so embarrassed, he can't keep himself from dragging his thumb across Bull's tongue, pressing down.

Bull opens his eye and hums low in his throat — Dorian imagines he can feel the vibrations from the tip of his finger up through his arm — and draws back from Dorian enough to kiss the tip of his thumb, say, "I want to hear you say it. Tell me."

Dorian breathes in sharply and shudders on the exhale. He could push back, Bull likes that, when he teases him; but there's something to be said for the way Bull's eye darkens when Dorian does exactly as he's told.

He presses his thumb against Bull's bottom lip, shiny with his spit. "I want you to fuck me, the Iron Bull."

Bull licks out at Dorian's thumb, his mouth curling into a frankly ribald grin. He hooks a hand over the back of Dorian's chair and tugs himself up to his feet.

Dorian tips his head back to look up at him and slides his hands forward to rest on either side of Bull's enormous belt. "Are you going to stand there? Or are you going to ravish me?"

"Mm, thinking about it, making you scream," Bull replies, and moves his hand from the chair to clasp the side of Dorian's neck, then up the back of his head to thread in his hair, tight. Dorian's mouth is dry again, and he can feel the arousal building at the base of his stomach, how it sparks up through his chest and out through each limb when Bull twists his hand in Dorian's hair.

Dorian closes his eyes and leans back into Bull's grip, bearing his throat until it's nigh uncomfortable to swallow. "I'm an impatient man. Get to it."

Bull tugs on his hair once before letting him go and stepping back out of Dorian's grip, then hooking one of his hands inside the top of his belt. He looks Dorian over, then nods towards the bed. "Lay down."

Dorian stands, gripping the back of the chair, and bends one leg to kneel on the seat while he starts to undo his tunic. Bull shakes his head once and Dorian stops, hands at his collar.

"Lay down," Bull prompts again, and at Dorian's frown continues, "I won't rip your fancy duds."

Dorian has half a mind to not believe that, but then Bull's never done something he told Dorian he wouldn't; so Dorian leaves his clothes alone and brushes past Bull — the _heat_ of him, Dorian can feel it in his _core_ — to toe off his shoes and lay himself out. It feels infinitely silly, on top of the covers and fully-dressed, but when he glances at Bull the man's looking at him like a starving man considers a banquet. Any awkwardness Dorian may have felt flees in the face of that.

Bull hums again, and licks his lips; and Dorian has to remember to breathe, has to force himself to do it, slowly. He's not a child, a blushing virgin laid out to be deflowered. "Surely we've better things to do than look at each other from across a room."

"I'm going to have you begging on my cock," Bull replies easily, and Dorian's breath catches in his throat again, _damnit_... and with his eyes locked on Bull's, he lifts his hands to the collar of his tunic again, undoing the top clasp.

"You little shit," Bull laughs, and veritably launches himself across the room.

==

"I'll be fine," Dorian says for what must be the twentieth time.

He knows his exasperation shows on both his face and in his tone, because Adaar lifts a brow at him. "You hadn't even thought about what you'd eat during the week. Or drink. Or—"

"Fortunately, I have you to worry for me." She glares at him and he laughs, waving a hand at her. "And others."

Adaar opens her mouth, surely to rebuke him, and then frowns. "Others? Did someone find out? I'll wring their necks—"

"The Iron Bull," Dorian interrupts before his dear inquisitor can elaborate on her efforts to protect Dorian through the gratuitous application of murder. “The Iron Bull knows.”

Adaar blinks at him, taking the information in, and then nods. “Good." She reaches over and clasps Dorian's arm, squeezing once. "Shall I send for him when I leave?"

Dorian laughs, a little high-pitched to his own ears, and wraps a hand around Adaar's wrist, squeezing back. "I'm sure he wouldn't miss a moment of this."

Adaar huffs a laugh of her own, and lifts her hand from Dorian's arm to ruffle his hair as though he were a child. He squawks at her and she smiles, a soft twist of her lips. "Good."

She leaves him then, and Dorian locks the door behind her. It's an unnecessary precaution, but a habit he doubts he'll ever be able to shake, particularly given how he already feels aware of every inch of skin on his body, every shift of each muscle as he moves.

He sets to laying runes around the room intended to strengthen the veil between the world and the Fade — he'd not wanted to start while Adaar was there, had no desire to answer her questions about them — and he's mid-way through the final rune when he hears the door shudder, someone thinking it was left open, followed by the key jangling in the lock.

"Hey," Bull says as soon as he's let himself in, and Dorian smiles despite himself when Bull doesn't lock the door behind him. The Qunari have no fear about this sort of thing. It's almost charming.

"Almost finished." He focuses on the final rune — and as it’s completed, he breathes in, forcing himself to relax into the strange absence of the Fade around him. "There. Far harder to lose oneself to possession now."

"Well that's good," Bull says, and when Dorian looks back at him he's got an exaggeratedly unperturbed expression on his face. "Let's shoot for a heat without demons at all."

Bull sets the pitcher and tray of food he'd been carrying on Dorian's dressing table — Dorian knew it'd be taken care of , there was no need for Adaar's concern, bless her — and leans against it when he turns to look down at Dorian, arms crossing over his chest. "You doing all right?"

"It's only just starting." Dorian pushes himself to his feet and ignores how lightheaded the motion makes him — all the blood in his body already routing towards his core. He moves to the dressing table, picking off a grape — grapes! and Bull's brought bread, other fruits, simple things for when Dorian's too distracted for anything complicated — and eyeing Bull as he bites into it.

Bull's eye is on Dorian's lips, and Dorian licks the grape into his mouth and takes great pleasure in how Bull's eye narrows. "I've set up chess, if you'd like. We can play before I'm too addled to beat you."

Bull huffs, bumping into Dorian's side. "Then you're always too addled. I kick your ass every time."

He does, the bastard. "I've the advantage this time around."

“What, an excuse?” Bull lifts a brow.

Dorian laughs at him and places his hands on his hips, pulling the fabric across his backside taut when he walks towards the board he has ready across the room. “There will come a moment at which point you’ll be unable to concentrate as well.”

“Sure of yourself,” Bull replies, but the words come from low in his throat, and Dorian grins.

==

He forgets how it feels, in the months between: the sudden need arcing through him starting deep within his core and spiraling outwards, warm and satisfying and just this edge of painful as though he’s eaten too much spice.

He hooks his hands around the arms of his chair and concentrates on the board, breathing out slowly. Bull glances up at him and Dorian shakes his head. Bull narrows his eye and Dorian glares at him until Bull huffs and looks back to the board. Captures Dorian’s tower.

The bastard's going to win again.

Dorian shudders the next time he inhales, the air too cold or his body too hot. It's cool as he breathes it in, sticks in his throat like ice. When it's Bull's turn again, Dorian pushes himself to his feet and shakes out his arms, raising them and locking his fingers behind his head as though there's any point in delaying the inevitable, the warmth radiating out through his torso and limbs.

Bull moves behind him, Dorian can hear it, and while he expects arms around him what he gets instead is a hand holding a cup of water out in front of his face. "Here," Bull says unnecessarily, and Dorian takes it with a grateful tip of his head before gulping it down — and then pulling a face. It's _lukewarm_.

Bull chuckles. "You don't need cooling down: you need hydrated."

"Thank you, mother," Dorian mutters. He passes the cup back to Bull and, bloody fuck, very well shivers when Bull's hand brushes his, when the back of one of Bull's over-large fingers bumps against Dorian's knuckle. Dorian is struck by the exquisite memory of how those fingers feel, how carefully Bull worked each digit into Dorian until he felt as though he were on fire, as though he...

Dorian shudders — reaches out. Bull's strong hand wraps around his own, outstretched and trembling, and Dorian closes his eyes and swallows, concentrates through the haze filling his mind. "I always forget how... quickly," he starts, but the rest of the words leave him.

"Probably worse because I'm here," Bull says, the low timbre of his voice buffeting against Dorian, around him, reaching in to the pit of his stomach and _twisting_. "Pheromones and all that shit."

"Right, yes," Dorian agrees, because that must be it, that makes some amount of sense to his mind, which is already rapidly losing interest in thinking about anything at all, let alone the whys of the situation. "We should..."

Bull's hand draws back from his and Dorian's eyes snap open, the loss of touch wrong, inherently wrong, heavy and bitter on his tongue like burnt caramel, the air like untreated bronto hide across his skin. " _Bull_."

"You're okay, you're okay," Bull consoles him, and Dorian's halfway to telling the idiot he's no such thing with Bull across the room and messing about with the water pitcher; but Bull lifts a brow at him and Dorian's unable to look away from his mouth and his tongue, licking out over his bottom lip. "How about your get yourself more comfortable for me, kadan?"

Dorian nods, the motion strange, his head feeling far more weighted than he's used to, and he staggers towards his bed and pulls off his tunic — simple, not buckles, he'd planned for this, he was capable of forethought at one point, _fuck_. His palm grazes his left nipple and he shudders, bending forward from the intensity of the sensation, similar to how sensitive his arse feels when he manages to taunt Bull into a rousing bit of spanking. The bed rises up to meet him — thank the Maker, he's sure he would have collapsed onto the floor — and he rolls onto his back, legs hanging over the edge of the mattress, hand pressed firmly to his chest.

"This is your fault," Dorian says — Bull admitted as much, and Dorian believes it, knows it to be true — because he has no memory of a heat ever making him so startled by and invested in fucking nipple play. "Come — get over here, you lout, you fucking—"

Bull moves into his line of sight, towering over him, the mattress barely skimming his knees, and Dorian cuts himself off and closes his eyes, dropping his hand to the mattress.

"You just gonna lie back for me?" Bull rumbles.

"You're good at this, aren't you," Dorian says, the words spiraling into a low moan when he feels Bull's fingers brush against his stomach, hooking into the waistband of his trousers. The headiness is back, how Dorian can't help but focus on the points of pressure where Bull's knuckles press against his skin as he divests Dorian of the rest of his clothes.

“Not gonna rest on my laurels,” Bull says from somewhere near Dorian’s thighs.

Dorian hums, sliding one of his hands down his chest, palm firm against his skin, cool against his stomach. Bull’s’ hands wrap around Dorian’s ankles, his thumbs circling the bones… Dorian knows the name, did once, can’t remember with the spike of lust Bull’s hands on him sends through him — such a simple touch, how would it feel were they to…

“ _Touch_ me,” Dorian commands, and Bull kisses the inside of his knees, his thighs. _Bull's shaved recently_ , Dorian thinks with a strange burst of clarity, and then he drops both hands to Bull's horns as Bull breathes hot against Dorian's cock.

He's not... it was easy to focus elsewhere, his chest, his stomach, because it all felt equally intense; but he was wrong, his mind playing tricks on him. The whole of it pales in comparison to the simple feel of air moving around him, knowing it's Bull — and then Bull moves in, mouthing at the head of Dorian's cock, and Dorian digs his fingers into Bull's horns, nails catching on the grooves.

Bull takes Dorian's cock in one of his hands, licks at the head, and — "Sweet Andraste," Dorian hisses, must have, he can't think — works his tongue under the fold of Dorian's foreskin. Dorian tips his head back, his mouth falling open as he draws in shuddering gulps of air, and he feels... he could, his shoulders shake, he, his grip on Bull's horns tighten—

" _Fuck_ ," he gasps, his cock jerking under Bull's touch, his mouth, and Bull hums.

"Shit yeah," Bull says, drawing his fist closed around Dorian's cock and licking at his spend.

The weight — the heaviness lifts from Dorian but doesn't leave, lingers almost within reach, and Dorian laughs weakly at the sudden rush of even that release. "Bull, _Bull_ ," he breathes, keeps saying the name until Bull moves to hover above him, until Dorian rocks up and kisses him, tastes himself on Bull's tongue, objectively disgusting, absolutely invigorating.

"Look at you," Bull tells him, pressing kisses to Dorian's lips and jaw and neck, anywhere he can get to with Dorian's grip on his horns. "Take the edge off a bit?"

Dorian hums, feeling the relief keenly, and then gasps as his heartbeat is echoed in his core, a sudden aching throb that he knows from his past heats, fuck, never so quickly—

"Shit, already?" Bull asks and Dorian forces himself to settle enough to look up at him, Bull's eye wide, genuinely surprised.

Dorian laughs, letting Bull's horns go, and he covers his face with one hand and thinks past the ache steadily building between his legs. "Pheromones and all that shit. I suppose."

"Gonna make me think I'm special," Bull replies, and when Dorian peeks through his spread fingers Bull has a delighted smile on his face. Looks somehow smug, as well. Handsome.

Dorian raises his hand from his face, curving it around Bull's jaw, and taps his thumb against the edge of Bull's smiling lips. Dorian opens his mouth — and immediately bites down on his bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth, the ache blooming through him.

"Hey, hey," Bull repeats, kissing Dorian's thumb briefly before pulling back, standing up, leaving a hand pressed to Dorian's stomach, thank the Maker, so he's not left without that grounding touch while his body does its damnedest to set itself on fire.

Heavy hands wrap around Dorian's hips, lifting him up the bed easy, so easy, and Dorian pushes into Bull's hold. "I got you," Bull tells him, then, "Roll over for me, sweetheart," so Dorian does, aided by Bull's steady grip, strong hands.

Dorian doesn't have time to loathe the rush of cool air on his backside before Bull's hands are on his arse, rubbing broad circles over his skin. Dorian rocks his hips up into it, chases a feeling he knows... he knows, fuck, he can't think, but he _needs_.

"I got you." One of Bull's thumbs traces the dip at the base of Dorian's spine, drags down between his arsecheeks, hesitating over Dorian's hole — Dorian shudders, gasps against the sheets, and Bull whispers, "I got you, kadan,” and, “Look at you, babe, already opening up for me so good.”

Dorian digs his fingers into the sheets, the mattress, and presses back into Bull’s grip on him, into the sweet pressure of Bull’s thumb working into his hole. “Look how wet you are,” Bull tells him, “so fucking gorgeous, so good for me,” and Dorian loses himself in that praise, in Bull’s quiet words, in his weighty presence at Dorian's back.

"I wanna eat you out, that okay, babe?" Bull breathes against his hole, and Dorian nods before Bull's finished the question, pulling the sheets taut in his grip. He wants it, Bull's hands spreading him open while Bull's tongue works inside him, and he lets out a long whine when Bull does it,     hands on his arse, licking across his hole.

"You taste incredible," Bull tells him, and if he says anything past that it's lost to Dorian, melting in the haze of Dorian's mind, round vowels and low moans that fucking vibrate the base of his spine.

Eventually — Dorian has little idea of how much time has passed, his entire world narrowed to the feeling of Bull in him, around him — but eventually, one of Bull’s hands leaves his arse, sliding around his hip to press firm, palm cool, capturing his cock against his stomach. Bull licks up the dip between Dorian’s arsecheeks and Dorian can feel how wet his mouth is, can feel Bull spread Dorian's slick across his skin.

It's not enough. Without Bull's tongue, without his fingers, Dorian feels painfully empty, feels his arse, his _hole_ clench with nothing there to soothe the ache. "Please," he says, voice hoarse, quiet, lost in the sheets perhaps, fuck, "Bull, I _need_ , please."

Bull kisses the small of his back and it feels good, but it's not enough, even with Bull's hand on his cock — it's never set on him so quickly, truly the result of having an alpha close, when he can think straight Dorian will, will strangle him, probably — and Dorian reaches back, searching blindly until his hand catches a horn.

"Hey, hey," Bull whispers, and he kisses Dorian's back once more before shifting back, up, damnably away. He takes Dorian's hand in both of his, leads it off of his horn. "Roll over again, kadan, let me see your pretty face. You're doing so good."

Dorian twists underneath him, Bull keeping a loose grip on his hand so he can turn, and on his back he gazes up at Bull who looks... who looks gorgeous, broad, unbelievably huge, shoulders taking up Dorian's entire line of sight. He smells... incredible, something Dorian can't describe, like contentment, and Dorian reaches up with his free hand, walks his fingers up Bull's arm. He drags his knuckles across Bull's collarbone, brings his hand to his mouth and, Maker, sucks one of his fingers into his mouth, tasting the salt of their combined sweat. It's heady, bitter, and Dorian laughs around his own damn forefinger as he watches Bull's eye dilate, as he watches Bull breathe in deep.

"Sweet fuck," Bull huffs out and Dorian hums, and Bull grabs Dorian's thighs, spreading his legs. "I'm gonna fuck you," he almost growls, and Dorian bends his knees, shakes when Bull looks down between them and gets distracted by what he sees, when Bull grabs one of Dorian's legs under his thigh and pushes it up against his chest, when Bull rubs his knuckles against Dorian's hole, works his fingers back inside.

Dorian bites down on his fingers, still in his mouth, and the noise he makes — Bull glances up at him, asks, "You okay?" — and Dorian tugs his hand out of his mouth, smacks Bull uselessly against his chest. "If you don't fuck me I'll do it myself," he snaps, far more articulate than he feels, and drops his hand to his arse.

Bull knocks it away immediately and leans in, pushing Dorian's leg up, nearly against his chest. "You gonna take what you need from me, omega?" Dorian can't see lower than Bull's chest, can't see Bull's free hand when he drops it between them, but he feels Bull's cock against his hole and he reaches up, wraps his arms around his bent leg, opening himself up as Bull rocks his hips once. "Or are you gonna let me give it to you?"

Dorian feels like the laugh is punched out of him, arousal spilling throughout his body, pulling at his lucidity . "Give it to me," he manages, and Bull says something in response, guttural, Qunlat maybe, but Dorian's attention is locked onto the slow stretch of his hole around Bull's dick, the filthy sound of it, how _full_ he feels.

"—then nod," he hears Bull tell him, and he does, he nods, he trusts Bull with this even when he's lost in it; and Bull's hands fall to his hips and the world shifts around Dorian, unnerving for half a moment, until he's upright, sitting, stretched around Bull's cock, Bull underneath him on the bed.

Bull's hands stay on Dorian's hips but he loosens his grip, and Dorian grabs at Bull's forearms, nails scratching skin, as his own weight pulls him further onto Bull's cock. "Bloody fuck," he hisses, and when he feels Bull's hesitation, bites out, "Don't you dare," and pulls every muscle taut, relishing the feel of Bull's cock within him and Bull’s hands on his hips, tightening again, nails pressing into Dorian’s skin. Lets Bull’s colorful cursing wash over him.

Dorian pushes his palms flat against Bull’s chest, tips his head back, rocks in Bull’s grip. He wants Bull to bruise, wants Bull to _feel it_ , and when Bull murmurs sweetly up at him, _look at you, so fucking tight, baby, good and wet and eager for me,_ Dorian — should hate it, but it sets his hands shaking, the ache almost soothed, so close to feeling that relief.

“Come for me, pretty,” Bull tells him, coaxes him, lifts one of his hands from Dorian’s hip to his back, between his shoulders, dragging his nails over his too-hot skin — five points of sweet pain that Dorian can barely appreciate. “Let me see your pretty face when you come.”

And Dorian — Dorian does, as though Bull has that control over him, as though it’s what he was waiting for, Bull’s command. His body _quakes_ , his toes curling, his fingertips digging into Bull’s chest. Bull’s knees are behind his back then, and Dorian leans back against Bull’s thighs, shudders through his orgasm like he’s been electrified — lets out a long moan when Bull begins to thrust up into him.

“Knot me,” Dorian breathes, and Bull swears and obeys.

==

Dorian has moments of lucidity over the next handful of days. Bull tells him when it’s night, and when it’s morning again, but Dorian doesn’t bother thinking past the weight of Bull’s fingers on his tongue when Bull feeds him, past the stretch of Bull’s cock in his arse, in his _mouth_.

He remembers those incompetent alphas in Tevinter in one strange moment, rambling about knotting his mouth, and he almost understands that desire, the _ache_ it would leave him with — and he forces Bull onto his back and rides him until he feels full and held and worshipped, Bull calling him _sweetheart_ and _pretty_ and _kadan_.

==

Bull kisses the crown of Dorian's head, breathing out in a huff that feels... warm, against Dorian's skin. It's passing. It's passing, and though he still feels the _craving_ that accompanies his heat, he can think beyond satisfying it... though he finds that, lying as he is with Bull's knot firmly inside of him and Bull at his back, he doesn't necessarily wish to. He tightens the muscles of his core, gleaning pure delight out of the groan the action pulls out of Bull.

"Give a guy time to breathe." Bull kisses Dorian's shoulder, up his neck, and Dorian hums, rocking his hips, tugging at Bull's knot. Bull curses under his breath and wraps his arm around Dorian's waist, keeping him still.

Dorian's relaxed, a veritable mess of flesh and bone, but there are still the last vestiges of _need_ itching at the base of his spine. He lifts his hand, reaching back behind Bull's neck to cradle the base of his skull in his palm. Thinks of Bull calling him _omega_ while they fucked.

"Alpha," he says, and Bull curses again. Dorian can't help himself — grins and scrapes his fingernails against Bull's scalp. " _Alpha_ ," he repeats, and bucks his hips against Bull's firm hand, hissing at the pull where they're connected. "I want you to fuck me, alpha."

"You little shit," Bull rattles at him, but Dorian can hear the affection in his tone, tired as it may be, and Bull's hand starts circling on his hip, his fingers threading through the hair surrounding Dorian's cock.

" _Please_ ," Dorian says, and Bull breathes out a _you asshole_ at the back of Dorian's head before rolling them until Dorian's caught between the Iron Bull and the bed, hand still at Bull's head, gasping against the ruined sheets.

==

Dorian's woken up from worse heats. His first was a disaster that he doesn't allow himself to think upon, and the heat that had befallen him while he was tracking Alexius south was a nightmare, turned away from inns and taverns until a charitable chantry mother took pity on him and let him occupy her hovel until he could once again walk straight.

When he wakes he's sore of course, and thirsty, but neither parched nor starving, which is a kindness. He sits up, hand to his head to brush his hair away from his eyes, and... well, that's an odd sensation, the sudden and steady drip of someone's spend from one's body. If he had any interest in sex right now, it'd probably be arousing. Bull would most assuredly find it so. As it stands, it's simply... odd.

Bull lies asleep next to him, and Dorian considers letting him alone — the man's done enough in these few days, and surely deserves his rest — but he knows Bull would be distressed in his own way were Dorian to rob him of an opportunity to pamper him.

He touches Bull's closest shoulder, the man spread out on his back, one arm thrown across his face. He looks positively exhausted, even in sleep. Dorian second-guesses himself, decides not waking him is the kinder option. He climbs out of bed — slowly, dear Maker, his body feels like he's been tossed about by a giant... not untrue all things considered — and pours himself water, eats from the plate of breads and cheeses what Bull hadn't fed him while he was under.

There’s movement from behind him, a long groan that sends a thrill up Dorian’s spine — heat passed then, but not entirely forgotten — and Dorian returns to the bed with water and a roll which he passes to Bull before sitting next to him.

Bull hums his thanks and swigs down the water in a single gulp, tearing into the bread. It’s gone in seconds, Dorian has no idea how, and Bull rests his hand on the small of Dorian’s back, his fingers slowly inching down Dorian’s arse towards his veritably abused and still — Andraste’s assumedly glorious tits — _leaking_ hole.

“You’re ridiculous,” Dorian says quietly, closing his eyes and turning his face towards Bull’s chest.

Bull kisses the top of his head, likely mussing Dorian’s hair even further, and Dorian sinks into his hold.

**Author's Note:**

> SO SELF-INDULGENT
> 
> thanks for reading. :D if you liked it, feel free to give me a holler over on [tumblr](http://amurderof.tumblr.com), or leave a comment below and make my frigging day.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [love is a doing word [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053882) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




End file.
